Joe Lacob: On Barnes, Ezeli, Piers 30/32 and Mark Jackson’s troubles

Let’s get right to the transcript of our post-draft group interview with Warriors co-owner Joe Lacob, though, I admit, I did most of the asking (if you can’t tell)…

A lot of stuff in here.

—JOE LACOB gaggle transcript, picked up in the middle of an answer/

-LACOB on Barnes’ workout in NY: Sometimes you get some things out of a workout, sometimes you don’t. The dude’s an athlete. The dude can… he can jump. He’s got a big vertical, he’s a great shooter.

More than anything, what I really loved, he’s an unbelievable high-character kid. Our character, our maturity, our culture, obviously that matters a lot here. We got the three best guys you could possibly get in this draft.

And he’s unbelievable. 4.2 GPA I’ve heard in high school. He is unbelievably well-spoken. When you speak to him you’re going to get a sense that he’s, like, 25 years old.

What I loved is he knew every single guy that he played against in AAU. He knew everything about them and his job, he said, was to take them down and prove he was better.

I talked to him for an hour. He was so impressive with his knowledge of every other player and the game.

You know, some people have accused him of not being the best teammate because he’s about his own scoring, you’ve heard those stories. Maybe it’s true. So’s Kobe Bryant. So are other people. There are other people like that.

What I liked about him, he’s a student of the game. Wanted to be the best at his position. I came away from it, looking at the person, that’s the guy I felt, if we could get anybody, that’s the guy I wanted.

Could I make an argument that Kidd-Gilchrist is a better fit defensively today? You might make that argument.

And certainly Dion Waiters may wind up being the best talent. He may wind up being the best talent. We don’t know. But he’s certainly very highly regarded.

-Q: How close were you to moving up or down?

-LACOB: As Bob said, if I told you how many potential deals we went through…

-Q: Bob said seven.

-LACOB: That was just today. I mean, it’s like by the hour. It’s hard to keep your brain… just today in particular, unbelievable shifting sands. We were looking at deals for days.

We had one or two that stayed pretty close all the way through, and depending on who was going to be there for us at 7, we were prepared to move down. We tried to move up also because we weren’t sure how everything was going to fall.

We were thinking we might be left out of our guys entirely. It was very possible. And Drummond was… went through this whole process… it was very interesting.

-Q: Do you see potential greatness with Drummond?

-LACOB: Could be. Could be. I’ll just say that he’s a very, very impressive athlete. He’s not an impressive basketball player today. I think if you’ll talk, you’ll hear that.

There’s a reason he slipped from potentially 2 to 9. All the teams he worked out for. I guess, my estimation, watching him, we saw that. That doesn’t mean that those people all made the right decisions. He could wind up being great, right?

How often do you get 7-footers that have his physical abilities? So it’s hard to say, nobody really knows for sure. He certainly was tempting. We debated him.

But at the end of the day, in all fairness, I think we had zeroed in on those three other guys that really were… all things considered, all factors considered, were probably the right guys for us and that we thought had a chance to get to us as well.

I’m absolutely ecstatic we got the guy we did.

-Q: Were you telling the group that you wanted a big guy, and that you stressed high-motor players?

-LACOB: All of us together, we, not I, we all wanted high-motor. We wanted high-character. No bad guys. We can’t afford to have that kind of problem.

Bigger’s always better. When we (acquired) Bogut for Monta, look, both great players, but we wanted to get bigger. I think you have to factor all of the factors…
I think there were a good six or seven players… I think we were going to get a good one in 90% of the scenarios. But there were some scenarios where we might get a good one that maybe we didn’t really thought fit. That’s when we would’ve traded down.

-Q: Jerry West yesterday said you couldn’t take a guy you had to wait for. How big a factor was that?

-LACOB: I think you can interpret Jerry’s comments in a couple different ways. I think that… I don’t want to say anything negative about anybody… I think we got one of the guys that we thought could’ve been drafted anywhere from 2 to 7.
We’re surprised that we got him. And I think that guy (Drummond), he’s a high-risk, high-reward player. That guy you’re referring to.

-Q: Drummond.

-LACOB: Drummond, yeah. You know, we do have Bogut. So you could make the argument that he would have the time to develop in that scenario. And that’s one reason to say that would be a great thing to try, two or three years from now he might be a great player, a great asset.

Or you can make the argument we want to win and he’s not going to help us win next year. And Harrison Barnes will definitely help us next year.

So… this is not a clear cut black-and-white thing. I think you can go either way in your argument. And I think we all shifted a lot along the way.

-Q: Was the debate going all the way through the pick?

-LACOB: We had an order that ideally would be the order that we wanted. Also, if the right guy wasn’t there, we were prepared to move down. We had several scenarios. Certainly tried to move up to guarantee getting one of the guys we wanted. That didn’t work out, clearly.

So I think at the end of the day, we could sit and debate this all day long, but we’re pretty darn happy.

-LACOB: It’s hard to answer that question. I would say he’s higher than you’re indicating.

-Q: I said 2-3-4. He was higher than 2?

-LACOB: I would say he was the first or second guy, depending on which day you think about it and how you think about it.

-Q: You’re not including Davis there, clearly.

-LACOB: No, I’m not talking about Davis. The game was over, we all know that Davis was the best. I’m sorry. After Davis.

Look, we thought right to the very end, we had a lot of good (information) on it, that he was going in the top three. So we really were happy that he wound up where he did.

-Q: You spent money to get Jeremy Tyler last year. Is Festus Ezeli ahead of him already? Does Tyler take a step back?

-LACOB: They’re all going to compete and figure it out. But Tyler, you could argue, is a 4, a 4/5. Ezeli’s definitely a 5.

He’s 6-11, 270 pounds, 5% body fat. He’s an absolute beast. Probably a little bit under-achieving in terms of his career for various reasons.

-Q: He’s late to the game.

-LACOB: Yeah, he’s late to the game. He was absolutely our guy at 30 the whole time. There are no bones about that.

-Q: Were you there for his workout with Zeller?

-LACOB: Absolutely.

-Q: After the workout, Ezeli said he did well.

-LACOB: He killed him. I mean, he’s much stronger.

You saw what happened in the draft, I mean, Zeller slipped. So obviously other people must’ve thought he was maybe not as… I think he’s a good player. And he could probably help a lot initially. And we had advocates for him at some level.

But Ezeli… we want big. And strong. What are we? We haven’t been big enough, strong enough, tough enough.

I think what he is, he’s really strong, very good shot-blocker, really good defensively. Those are his strengths. I cherish the thought of having that ability to (still have) great rim protection when Bogut’s out of the game.

And we’ve still got Andris, who obviously we’d like to see him get better, improve his game. But we’ve got three 7-footers. We’ve never had this in years past. We’ve got size, right?

-Q: Does this change your free-agent priorities? Maybe you don’t need a small forward or a big?

-LACOB: We’re young, so I think veteran presence would certainly help, if we could find the right guy. But you know, there really isn’t much in free agency this year, that’s our belief. That’s why we did everything to load up to get these picks, to get optionality, because we knew there wasn’t a lot in free agency.

There are a couple of guys that are going to be of interest…

-Q: A veteran point guard?

-LACOB: Maybe. I just don’t know who that would be, honestly. But it’s a possibility.

-Q: Where are you with the arena process at Piers 30/32? I know you had some kind of public hearing…

-LACOB: There haven’t been any public hearings. We’ve had some community groups we’ve met with. We’re starting that process and we’re going to be very active pursuing that.

Rick Welts has been our designated guy to do that and done a terrific job. We’re going to be very active doing that.

Frankly, I think we’re really happy with the way things hava gone so far. We’ve had very little opposition of note. There’ve been a few comments here or there and we expect that. Nothing is going to go without somebody complaining.

But so far it’s gone very, very well.

-Q: Have there been any new talks with the Giants about Pier 50 or Lot A?

-LACOB: I think over… we’ll have that all done over the next two, three months. We’ll have that selected. We’ve got a timeline for all these different things. We’re working on it.

We have an architect already involved. We’ve done a lot of the interior design. But there’s an internal part of it and an external part of it…

-Q: I know you put the statement out on Mark Jackson’s situation today. Where are you personally with Mark on this?

-LACOB: Same place as yesterday. We love him as a coach, love him as a person. He’s our coach. We stand behind him.

Obviously it’s a difficult situation for him that happened to him. All I can tell you is that we didn’t know anything about it obviously until recently. Clearly very surprising. I think he’s obviously somewhat embarrassed by it.

But one thing about Mark Jackson, he’s a stand-up guy. If you saw his statement, he laid it out and said he made a mistake. You know, six years ago, not anything having to do with the Warriors.

And we didn’t know that, certainly had no expectation obviously that something like that ever happened. But he’s a great guy, great coach, we’re 100% behind him.

He’ll get through this. He’s doing all the right things–the FBI got involved as you know, they’ve got the people in custody. It’s a pretty crummy situation.

-Q: Do you wish you’d known about this?

-LACOB: I wish it never happened. I’m sure he does, too. But it did. And that’s life. We knew about it as soon as he told us, basically, not too long ago, obviously when the FBI was getting involved.

It’s not like he hid it from us. It only happened in late-April, something like that, so it’s not been that long.

I don’t know, the Warriors seem to… this organization always seems to have bad luck with things like this. Obviously, this organization we’re building, we’ve worked really hard to change the culture, to change everything about this organization, have quality people everywhere, and Mark is a quality guy.

He made a mistake, as he has admitted to. He’s owned up to it and move on.

-Q: Is there any worry about a credibility issue–whether it’s in the locker room or in the community? He’s the public face of this franchise in many ways.

-LACOB: We’re moving on, we’re going to deal with it. That’s for people like you to write about it and his players, if there’s a credibility issue that’s something he’ll deal with.

You’ve got to look at a man’s total body of work in his life. I’m sure you’ve made some mistakes in your life that you probably wouldn’t want to get out in public. Everybody has. It’s unfortunate. But he’s a really good man and we back up 100%. We stand right behind him.

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although I don’t think Mark Jackson should have been the coach based on his lack of any practical experience, I do agree with Lacob here that MJ made a mistake, fessed up to it, and now time to move on. Jackson will have to pay for his mistakes in terms of losing some credibility and respect, but that is life and he will have to deal with it.

But great draft by Ws. 48 wins next year.

Beentheredonethat

A lot of scrambling at warrior headquarters these days…btw I have tapes of the past seasons and will take 5 bucks or I will post them to you tube..

Cy5

Lacob needs a lesson from Harbaugh on how not to say too much. Seems like he wants to be considered the smartest guy in the room. Those guys typically arent.

A

I just have a problem with Lacob being a basketball mind in the room full of basketball minds. Sooner or later this is going to his head/ego and its gonna be a very bad thing for the Warriors.

jpschewey

Not sure if Mark Jackson was the best choice for GSW coach. A great NBA player, fairly high profile guy but no coaching experience. He got the nod based on his reputation as a knowledgeable point guard.
His reputation based on solid values, high character, and God-fearing ways.
Add hypocrit and fornicator to the list.

Leonard Bonilla

OH Boy, here we go again. I’ll say this. Judge not, lest you be Judged.” I’m not convinced Jackson is the Coach that will bring a championship to the bay Area. I don’t give a hoot about his personal life unless he gets involved in a felony issue.

Until this team starts winning more then they lose nothing has changed.

Lyford Hale

Regarding the Mark Jackson comments, God works exclusively with flawed men and women. That’s all he has to work with because we’re all imperfect.

It would be nice if the comments posted here about Jackson were not so judgmental. All of us are imperfect. Most of us don’t have our imperfections showcased in the media.

Harp’s Dubs

Atlanta needs to break up their core and has one of the biggest contracts in the league with Joe Johnson.
Though I love Klay Thompson, how about a trade of Jefferson, Biedrins and Thompson for Joe Johnson?

Kitty Kat

Once again, Lacob just can’t miss an opportunity to toot his own horn. Is there an owner in the league who has accomplished so little yet talks so much? Outside of Cuban, IS there any NBA owner that talks this much? He must be a laughingstock among other owners in the league, most of whom are a lot wealthier and more successful in their professional lives.

A few interesting observations about last night:

1. I listened to Tim Roye’s draft wrap-up on 1050 AM, and he interviewed Bob Myers who was over-the-moon with the draft haul, and is sounding more and more (unfortunately) like Lacob every day with some of his pronouncements. Then, he interviewed Jerry West, who was much more measured and restrained in his enthusiasm, which I appreciated. West understands that you don’t know what you have in these guys until you have them on the court vs other NBA players. He’s been doing this a long time, which is why it’s so ridiculous to take anything a clown like Lacob says with any seriousness. And I’m sorry, Harrison Barnes was a huge let-down. There is no other way to spin it.

2.) To put the Warriors place in the Bay Area sporting universe in proper perspective, I was in my car listening to Tolbert and Byrnes on KNBR as the draft was happening. At the very moment that the Warriors were selecting Barnes — their most important moment of the night — their flagship station had Tolbert interviewing Giants GM Brian Sabean. (And to add insult to injury, Tolbert was at Warriors HQ at the time.) Comcast Sports gave about 2 minutes to the Warriors draft on their wrap-up news show, long after the Giants game ended. This morning on KNBR, there was a tiny bit of Warriors talk here and there (mostly indifferent, w/regard to their draft), and then it was wall-to-wall Giants. And Lacob thinks that a team that is clearly so far down the food chain is going to get the kind of monumental support necessary to build a waterfront arena in SF???? They were made almost irrelevant by all the local media outlets on one of their biggest nights of the year. It just shows you how far away the NBA stands in the Bay Area in relation to the 49ers and the Giants.

Eezap Skeezap

Far more important in this interview than anything about Mark Jackson and his indescretion is Lacob indicating that with Bogut, Festus, and Tyler, the Dubs now have an established center paired with two young big bodies who will help them get past the vanishing act being pulled by Biedrins, who could be arrested for stealing money any day now. Obviously that’s been a huge focus of the team over the last year. Anyone writing off Tyler has their sights misplaced. It’s Biedrins who will be the odd man out.

Cap this draft off by signing JKidd to stabilize the back court and we might actually sniff the playoffs.

Congrats on back-to-back good looking drafts, Lacob & co. As a lifelong fan, it’s great to feel the franchise is making good moves.

Jeremy

I don’t mind Lacob being involved as so far he’s made it a point to bring guys into the FO and decision making processes with expertise in specific areas and, thus far, has drastically improved the quality of talent on the team. I don’t agree with the Barnes pick, but I feel more comfortable knowing this group made that decision rather than the previous groups.

Mark Jackson is fine as coach for now, but I wish Stan Van Gundy had been fired a year earlier. He’d be a great coach for this team.

EvanZ

Great draft.

Martina

People here make me laugh. Do you really expect that Lacob or Myers would say, “we’re really disappointed that Waiters was taken at #4, and we had to settle for Barnes”?

This seems to be a very solid draft.

Mark Jackson? Seriously, Mike Malone is available right now. Once this is settled through the FBI, I think Lacob needs settle with Jackson and bring in Malone.

HOMERLANDWARRIORS

Yet another chance to get someone in the draft and dump steph curry.

Take a good look at the laughing stock new orleans hornets with Davis and austin rivers.

I am telling you right now even as rookies ….this combo is better than the warriors bogut and curry

hands down.

this is what makes the warriors so pathetic

teams get really good in one draft and the warriors continue to blow smoke up fans’ behinds with pretenders

HOMERLANDWARRIORS

hey guess what????

while the warriors put on the court…….Lee, bogut, and curry…..

the hornets can put out Kamn, Davis, and rivers

I’d take the hornets trio all day

Go Warriors

for a guy that wants to sound like he knows it all, Lacob sure does use the “other people say” and “if you ask around you’ll also hear the same” crutch a lot, which is good I guess because then we know he’s actually listening to West and others.

Go Warriors

#16 don’t forget about Klay Thompson, kid is gonna be great next year. Why you act like the Hornets made an awesome decision in taking Anthony Davis, sht was gift wrapped for them. Not sold on Rivers, sorry.

Brung Brung

As desperate as I usually feel Lacob to be for premature adulation and positive ego strokes, this interview actually felt like an improvement. He seemed to only get a couple of toes in his mouth before he demonstrated some self-awareness and avoided cramming his whole foot in there.

Maybe the slightly more measured tone is an indication that some feedback is getting through beside, “yes Mr. Lacob,” and “fabulous idea Mr. Lacob.” One can only hope as an organization driven entirely by hubris is a recipe for tragedy.

Hammy

High motor guys, great to look for. Don’t look for high character gusy when drafting. That’s how you end up choosing Todd Fuller over Kobe Bryant.

BananaSpartan

I know comparing this to the Cohan regime is somewhat ridiculous (except for the fact that we Warriors fans dealt with his garbage for nearly 20 years), but I really think this is what would have happened were Cohan still here:

–There would have been no Monta trade, so the Warriors would have gone into this draft without a center, maybe the #7 pick, and a 2nd rounder.

–They would have drafted Drummond with the #7 pick, and sold the 2nd round pick.

So going into next season, they’d have had a recovering Curry, Monta complaining from beginning of training camp to be let go (and I would bet he’d be attempting to poison Klay, Tyler, Jenkins, and Drummond–at least 2 of them would get poisoned and stop trying so they could be traded sooner than later). The starting front court would be Wright, Lee and Drummond.

So going into next season, they’d have few assets, a bunch of guys trying to get out, and most likely would lose their 1st round pick to Utah.

Instead, look at it this way: look at the last 2 drafts with how the Warriors traded and bought picks. Is there a chance that at least one of Jenkins, Tyler, Ezeli, or Green becomes a rotation player (or maybe even starter) this season? There is a chance that by the start of the 2013-2014 season, those 4 players could all be Top 9 rotation players for the Warriors. My point is that if the Warriors do surrender their 1st round pick to Utah next season, they will have already gotten a “1st round player” in their rotation amongst these 4 recent draft picks.

What I thought the Warriors would do though, is somehow trade out these draft picks and a current player on their roster to get a 1st rounder next season. Eventually, either this summer or before the trade deadline, I think they will acquire a 2013 1st round pick. The reason I think they will do this is that if they surrender their own 1st round pick to Utah, they will not be able to trade their own 2014 1st pick (the back to back year deal) unless they have another 2013 1st round pick. One of the problems this year, though, is I don’t think they have any good expiring contracts (Jefferson and Biedrens, I think both have 2 years remaining–those aren’t good trade assets until the beginning of the 2013 season). Perhaps the Warriors will wait until the 2013 season to acquire at least one more 2014 1st round pick. Then they’ll have the trade flexibility once again. Another difference between the regimes is that I bet Jerry West, Myers, and Lacob are already planning for this. The Cohan regime just watched the sucker fans roll in every game and counted their money and didn’t bother with such annoyances as planning assets a few years in advance.

milo

I give Mark Jackson two more years. He’ll help develop the young guys, be tough on them and when they get better the Ws will have to hire a coach that can win consistently and the division.

As for what the young guys will learn is: A) how to play tough, B) how to bang all the groupies you want while covering your butt. Part of rookie orientation is a seminar on the do’s and don’ts of hook-ups.

jimmy

Great Draft,in fact one of the best in recent team history.. will have a chance for playoff next year, if bogut and curry healthy..but still need to do 1 last step.. FIRE MARK JACKSON! the guy is a joke, first he is a liar (fake promised on playoff last year) 2. He is idiot , questioning his basketball IQ, and knowledge ( he cost us a higher draft positions, by winning a wolves game late season when we down by 27 pts, and we posiible coulda pick 1,2,3,4,5or 6, instead of nervously 7th or none til the draft lottery).. 3. he is a pervert ( the exortion incident).. please FIRE MARK JACKSON, and hire elite coach or big time coach out there, JERRY SLOAN, MCMILAN, PORTER, etcc, this young team need a REAL leader, teacher or mentor, and MJackson is NONE of that.. all he does is BS and sweet talk, but can’t walk the talk.. heck, fire him and promote our ball boy, we still might win a playoff game..

pupunu

You’ve got to look at a man’s total body of work. He sent nude photos of his body…of…work…

rayoflight

How can you laud Harrison Barnes as a “high character guy” when your coach is a lying, conspiring, fornicator?

Not only did Jackson play the God card then cheat on his wife, then he tried to cover it up by paying off the blackmailer.

What a total and complete bankrupt human being.

The Warriors still continue to be a total joke.

Nothing ever changes. And nothing ever will. This is why we all wanted Larry Ellison instead of Lacob. Ellison WOULD NOT ACCEPT FAILURE.

Lacob is Cohan 2.0 It’s the same stuff.

A’sRaidersWarriors

It seems that some wouldn’t know a good franchise owner if it gifted you a water front arena, trading for a top 3 center, Brandon Rush, picks 30 & 35 in a deep 2012 draft and who is willing to buy 2nd rd draft picks two years in a row. Look we all have suffered as long time fans at the hands of bad ownership, but now we have ones who put actually put winning first, ones are willing to spend their own cash to do it. Any one notice how we got “lucky” this year in regards to the draft (winning the coin toss and then not being leap frogged during the lottery). More like they bought the good will of the commissioner by paying the highest amount ever for an NBA team and aggressively pursuing this arena with their own cash, it was no coincident that ceremony was before the draft and stern was there as a presenter. Wake up Warrior fans, things have changed. No need to bash a guy for talking, it shows a lack of focus and the need to be un happy about something, anything.

Norman

In the NBA divisional championships (4 teams) there were nine players who are going to the Hall of Fame and three more who could make it (Westerbrook, Rondo, Bosh). The Warriors have no one who is even close. Wake me when they find one of these guys.